“What Is a Christ-follower? –
The Me I Was Meant To Be”
Introduction:
We live in confusing times. On the one hand, Christianity is under attack in our public institutions, media and academia, often resulting in disinformation about the teachings of Christ. On the other hand, all kinds of people with dubious lifestyles are claiming to be Christians, confusing people who want to know what Christianity is all about. Yet it is in this culture and at this time in history that we hear Christ’s call again as it echoes through time, “Take up your cross and follow Me.”
Dallas Willard, a Christian author I’ve enjoyed for years, writes something in his latest book “The Great Omission” which is a good place with which to start this series off, I think. He writes, “The greatest issue facing the world today, with all its heartbreaking needs, is whether those who, by profession or culture, are identified as ‘Christians’ will become disciples – students, apprentices, practitioners – of Jesus Christ, steadily learning from him how to live the life of the Kingdom of the Heavens into every corner of human existence.”
I believe that his sentiment is correct, and it’s the reason for this series. We’d like to clear up any confusion over what it means to be a Biblical Christian or, in other words, a Christ-follower. Does it mean that we will all look the same, act the same, dress the same and think the same? Does it mean that we all have to vote for a certain party or that we all like the same music? The answer is, clearly, no.
God created us as individuals, with our own unique personalities, gifts, talents and abilities. We each have potential that God intends to have unleashed on the world in a positive way. We also recognize that we live in a fallen world, a world dominated by sin, an attitude in rebellion to God. This sin has corrupted everything it has touched: individuals, families, workplaces, institutions, whole societies. It’s what we’re born into; it’s the culture in which many of us have been raised.
But the message of Scripture is that into this mess walks Jesus, with a very clear agenda: to establish God’s Kingdom in the hearts and minds of people and to bring redemption to a fallen world.Look at Luke the fourth chapter where Scripture records Jesus’ words as He began His ministry. He went to worship in the synagogue on the Sabbath and they asked Him to read the Scriptures. Jesus opened the scroll of Isaiah to Isaiah 61 and began to read: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” He then rolled up the scroll, handed it to the attendant and sat down and said, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
What was He saying? All of the prophecies of Scripture, speaking of the Kingdom of God and the Messiah which was to come, had lead up to this point in time. All of it was to be fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The course of human history was about to be altered forever: the poor would receive good news, prisoners would know freedom, the blind would see and the oppressed would find liberty. Everything would change.
The New Testament tells the story of Jesus on the earth, how He did exactly what He said He would do. He healed the sick, ministered to the poor, accepted the outcast, fed the hungry, freed the demon-possessed, preached the truth, forgave sinners and challenged the abusers of power. Through His three years of ministry Jesus moved inexorably toward His ultimate purpose – to lay down His life as a ransom for the sins of the world, then to rise again in demonstration of power. As He returned to His Father He sent His Holy Spirit to empower the church to carry on His work.
His ministry was not one of physical violence. He didn’t argue. He didn’t intimidate. He spoke truth to power, He spoke mercy to the suffering, grace to all of us, and He gave His life to provide a way back to relationship with God the Father. And while He was here He established this thing called ‘the church.” It wasn’t just another organization – it was and is a living organism, infused by the Holy Spirit, commissioned to go into all the world and make disciples in every nation, preach the gospel, and teach everything that Jesus taught.
All of this leads us to our subject for this series: what is a Christ-follower?
I think that’s a good question. Is a Christ-follower someone who raises their hand at the right time and prays the right prayer? If you’re sincere that’s where you start – but it’s certainly not the end, it’s only the beginning. That is merely the introduction. When our hearts are touched and we sincerely pray a prayer of repentance, a new life is born and an introduction is made as Jesus Christ comes and dwells in our hearts by faith. But, as Dallas Willard asked as we began today, will those who are identified as Christians become disciples, or not?
What is a disciple?
Let’s look at this word “disciple.” It simply means student, or apprentice. We see clear pictures of this as Jesus began His ministry. He did very few things alone. Rather, as He began, He immediately went and recruited 12 men to be His key disciples, and later many more who would be in His outer circle. But these 12 in particular He called to follow Him, to watch Him closely, to learn how He did things, and, eventually, to do what He did.
You would have thought that Jesus would have looked for a particular kind of person; perhaps scholarly, from a good family, self-made kind of men. Yet Jesus chose men with various backgrounds, some were fishermen, no scholars there. Matthew collected taxes for the Romans and was viewed as a traitor. Then there was Simon, called the Zealot, perhaps because he was from a radical group of people pledged to overthrow Roman rule by whatever means possible.These men were ordinary people, yet these were the ones Jesus chose to train and to whom He eventually handed over leadership of the church.
The thought that I want to focus on this morning is this: Jesus called you to follow Him so that you could become the Me that you were created to be.That will only happen when you become fully connected to the life that Jesus Christ offers. Let me try to explain what I mean by looking at what Jesus said.
As Jesus spoke to the woman at the well in John 4:14 He told her that “whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”Again in John 7:37-38 He said, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” There are many others, but one more. In John 10:10 “Jesus said Ihave come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
There have been many efforts over the years to formalize disciple making. There have been some very good ones and some not so good. Many of them focus on a list of things that must be learned in order for discipleship to have taken place, and to some extent that’s true. Jesus Himself said in John 8:31-32: “To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’”
The bottom line is that Jesus said, “Follow Me.” To the fishermen, Peter, James and John He said, “Follow Me and I will make you fishers of men.”(Matthew 4:19). This life that they had come to love was okay, but Jesus wanted to take it up a notch. The Me that everyone expected them to be was fishermen, but Jesus knew that they were made to help men and women find relationship with the living God. He called them to find the higher version of themselves. The key to doing that was spending time with Jesus. The focus wasn’t on learning something, it was on becoming someone. As John Ortberg writes, “The most important task of your life is not what you do, but who you become.”
A recent study by the Barna Group found that the number one challenge to helping people grow spiritually is that most people equate spiritual maturity with trying hard to follow the rules in the Bible. So spiritual growth becomes a chore, a list of rules to keep. But here’s the problem with that, I can follow the rules and have a heart that is hard as rock. So, what is the target? It’s very simple. My goal is to be like Christ. That’s why Jesus didn’t just say, here’s the list, do this. He said, “Follow Me.”
If I want to become the person that God created me to be, the only way I’m going to get there is by following Christ as closely as I can.
There’s a medical term given in the form of an acronym: FTT. Those initials stand for Failure To Thrive. Those letters are entered on the chart of an infant who, for whatever reason, is unable to gain weight or grow. Doctors often do not know the cause. All they know is that the child is not thriving. Psychologists have begun to speak of what is perhaps the largest mental health problem of our day. It is not clinical depression or anxiety. It is languishing – a failure to thrive.
This is the condition of someone who may be able to function, but has lost a sense of hope and meaning. Languishing is not the presence of mental illness, it is the absence of mental and emotional vitality. I believe it is the opposite of what Jesus referred to in John 7 when He spoke of the living water. For many people there is no stream, no life-giving supply. And many of these people would call themselves Christians, they follow the rules, they do what they’re told, they look and act nice. But they’ve become followers of church or followers of Pastor so-and-so, but they’re not followers of Jesus. But there is a person inside of you waiting to come alive.
God calls each of us to flourish, not languish. And this is not simply for our own benefit. When you become the person God made you to be, the lives of people around you benefit from that. I mentioned in a previous message that it’s not a coincidence that near the front of the Bible and near the end of the Bible, there is a river. The river speaks of life and vitality and healing.
In Revelation 22:1-2 we read: “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.”
It’s a wonderful picture isn’t it?
Notice that the crops grow every month. There’s always a new supply. Life is never out of season when the River of Life is flowing. Look again at John 7:38 “Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”It was said last week and a couple of weeks ago that “It’s not about you.” Let’s say it again.
God designed you to flourish, spiritually speaking, so that you could be a part of His redemptive work in ways that, otherwise, you wouldn’t. He wants to pour His life into you and through you. He wants to pour His Holy Spirit through you into a thirsty world. He wants you to become the Me that you were called to be.
1